A couple of weeks ago, I found a little case of cds… music cds. My car is a 2010; it has a cd player, so I was overjoyed at the find. I don’t know how long they’ve been missing, but at least fifteen years. Some of them were homemade or bootleg, burned to a disc?
I didn’t even go through them. I just tossed the first into the player, it was Leonard Cohen.
I have a long history with Leonard Cohen and I mean, LONG. I was trying to think of where I got his albums. I had all of them; this would have been in the 1970’s. In whatever case, I was fifteen years old. I had gotten myself UN-homeless by taking a live-in housekeeper / babysitter job for this real estate dude.
He’s the one who had the variety of friends over for “breakfast”. I was exceedingly naive and did not find out these women were “commercial company” for many years. I had to be told, about ten years after the fact. Lots more to that story, obviously.
So I had these albums and I was working as a bartender. I didn’t think to do this on my own. It was this man who suggested it. My running buddy and I had been hustling pool. She could play and I could engage anybody. This man pointed out, we were in a bar (though not drinking). “They think you’re old enough. Why don’t you get a job…” I was working in bar two days later – started on a Saturday night.
I mention this because I had the albums and they belonged to me, but I sure as hell didn’t buy them. I had no money, no way to shop, I didn’t steal them so someone gave them to me, but I just can’t remember who. I do remember, the person told me they thought I would like the music. “Right up your alley…”
Well, what do I know? I just stumbled into town from the desert; just dumb as a post but this guy had a record player and I was alone in the evenings.
This was because my friend, who I got un-homeless with me, was out doing whatever. Nefarious stuff, which she never involved me in.
I didn’t know this at the time. It was this gal who filled me in, ten years later. All I know is the man was with his daughter in the evening. “Mary” was out. I was “off work”, so to speak. I was alone and I have Libra!
This man had a huge library. A large room, with books, floor to ceiling, but I was not to touch them. But he did let me use a little record player so I started listening to this music and jeez, I just couldn’t stop. I did not care to stop.
I listened to these albums over and over and over and over; trying to understand their meaning, intellectually. When that failed, or was not sufficient, I turned them on, turned out the lights and lie still, feeling, not thinking. This went on for months. I preferred listening to this music over anything and frankly, I had no need for this time or this activity to end. I was full to the top, so to speak.
If you wonder if I was having a Pluto transit – yes. And eventually this period came to an end, when the police knocked on the door, asking for, “Elsa”.
Again, I didn’t know what happened for YEARS. I was just so stupid, but as it turns out this, man wanted to have sex with us. My friend was actually setting him up with various girls… where I was a million miles removed from such a thing. Somehow he realized I would not be putting out. This was his way of getting me out of his house, without taking responsibility. I actually think it’s funny because I know he paid for this at some point.
But I did retain my albums. I was able to go back and get my things. I continued to listen to these albums for about ten years, until some guy I was dating told me, Cohen, was dark and morose and listening to him was no good for me. I thought he might be right.
It’s interesting if you know these artists. This man loved Jerry Jeff Walker, who I also like to listen to. His music is fun and upbeat and you can’t snob-diss the guy because he wrote, Mr Bojangles! Point being, I decided I might set aside my Leonard Cohen and see if it actually changed me.
It did change me of course. I didn’t listen to Leonard Cohen for many years. Maybe twenty years. I started listening to him again, circa 2003 or so, right before he had a huge resurgence of popularity. That went on for three years or so; I put him down when my husband came into my life. It’s not his style at all and I am of course, co-dependent!
So now I have these cds which I can listen to in private, when I drive, which is another thing I love to do. It’s been great. I put the second cd in this morning, Songs Of Love And Hate. What a perfect title!
This was the album, very hard for me to crack, when I was a kid. I am not sure I will be that much better at it, today. But I can say, listening to it on the way home from the grocery store for all of ten minutes, resulted in this blog post. Memories stirred.
I’ll leave you with this, which I wrote in 2008. It’s one of my favorite posts on this entire blog over nearly twenty-five years, simply due to the way it came to me. I was able to feel teenage feelings, for one thing; deep to the planet core.
This was also one of my favorite songs from back then. Totally accessible and the bells just kill me and I mean, they kill me dead, along with the fact I was listening to this with no earthly idea who I was in time or space.
Compassion And Confiding In Strangers: “The Sisters Of Mercy, I Hope You Run Into Them Soon…”
That they matched this song to this movie, blew my gaskets. I would not have thought something like this, possible.
Love Leonard Cohen. He’s a genius poet. But maybe not for young girls…
His music had a good effect. As an example, whatever might be said about, Leonard Cohen, his life was not unexamined. I learned to ruminate, *productively* from him.
Oh my, Elsa! This is another connection! I went to high school for 3 1/2 years at an all girls’ high school run by the Sisters of Mercy. Two of my aunts were Mercy nuns until they quit! CRAZY!
This is good stuff. My 8 year old grandson hates rap and LOVES Harry Bellafonte! The Muppet Show on cable helped make him who he is! I so get it! He’s got Neptune @ 7 Pisces in H5 on the cusp of H6.
If you’re looking for good driving music try Sade’s Lover’s Rock. I drive and sing along all the time.
Isn’t the memory beautiful what goes in there when it comes out just like a little piece of cobweb almost invisible until you see it Bang so clear so vivid like you fell thru somewhere you can feel the same light you are back to where and who you were right from the edge of your eyelash
You’re there and you understand so much more.memory so beautiful how it preserves.
This post sang to me (pun intended!). Music has been my only constant and the only one that understood me no matter what I was going through. I make some time, every week, where I can listen to whatever takes my fancy, whatever exorcises those demons. When we have company, I still occasionally put on music I feel is appropriate, and they all, to a man, say “God, this is depressing, can’t you put something happy on?” See, it’s not depressing to me, it’s meaningful. B52’s I guess? Meh.
I don’t have a Venus Neptune aspect, but I do have Neptune in the 12th/3rd house Pisces Moon trine Venus, if that counts for anything.
Ahhh music!
It was Joni Mitchell for me… Scorpio sisters
Had a room in our house alone by 16 years old Being the 9th of ten !
Lots of Joni and Cat Stevens..Stevie Wonder…
Music for life!!!
So timely, as always! I’ve kind of ignored Neptune in my chart for the most part because it’s so confusing (ha!). But I keep getting intuitive hits lately about how important music is for me. My natal Neptune just happens to be conjunct the galactic center at 27° Sagittarius, 12th house. And in December I see we’re going to have some important conjunctions at the galactic center. I’m getting it more now.
It’s actually a huge blessing. I will definitely be putting more time and energy into music going forward. Lately I’ve been feeling like the songs that have been popping into my head have important messages for me. Thanks for getting my thoughts going Elsa!
Music has saved me more than once.And dance too…Stones in the day. Blues. Amy Winehouse. I listen to contempory music and ancient…whatever speaks to me. I collected and kept my CDs ( l dont know if they will ever be as groovy as tapes are now. One day maybe) Danced (briefly) to Drake’s Take Care recently. Did me the world of good…not sure about my knee. l also listen to the Hottest 100 Triple J. It’s a thing over this way. Neptune in Scorpio.
I was wrong. It wasnt Drake’s Take Care (l thought his music had taken a new direction…it happens) l think my nephew said it was Big Boi. Wrong cd in the case. A small Neptune Picses slip up…great track.
Thx for the sweet memories, Elsa. Leonard Cohen was one of my favorites, too,in the early 70s. I saw the movie McCabe and Mrs Miller with my father! I also, like you, have always had strangers and coworkers tell me their deep issues and stories. (double Libra plus Neptune and moon in 12th, Scorpio rising) I always thought people just like to talk about themselves, while I didn’t. But, maybe 🤔 they just knew I’d keep their secret. Thx again, you really make me think.❤️
Just found on YouTube Leonard Cohen narrating The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Very beautiful
Some of his songs vibrate in my bones. Not so much the love songs, more those songs that (to my mind) are instructions on how to die. Think I’ve heard ” the goal” a million times.
As for the fall
it began long ago…
And each time – that shiver of understanding something. Of my body understanding something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mszJwXsZwKM
Yeah, what I think is pretty amazing which you might not have looked into is covers. I used to get Mojo magazine and they would cover different classics which was how I found out about Cohen. It is amazing how a cover can reveal another emotional side to a song:
Emily Barker covered ‘Masters Song’. It just seemed more sinister with the depth she brought to it.
The miserable rich covered ‘The strangers song’. It’s long lyrical riddle, this is similar in some ways to ‘It’s all over now Baby Blue’. “Please understand I did not have a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter” – Haunting.
The Diagrams covered ‘Famous Blue raincoat’. This song I went on a lot of different covers and the song sounds completely different depending on who is singing it. The Diagrams covered it in a pure rage kind of way but others seem to have covered it with kindness, or another emotion. Cohens himself of course being open to interpretation.
And ‘Nancy’ is another one. It is a song that seems to capture a kind of confused misery of some women.
I think there is a lot of music that is miserable. I don’t think it is important to avoid miserable music. Bob Dylans Dirge. Another cover I have gone on youtube for is ‘my immortal’ by Evanescence, and in the youtube comments, there are a lot of people saying the song helped them in times of legitimate grief.